Bubba Sparxxx teams with DJ Booth for the debut of his new single from Miracle On Gamble Road, hitting Nov. 23rd.

LISTEN: Bubba Sparxxx – “There I Go Again” (MP3)

No longer keeping it “Polo and New Balance” Bubba strips Deliverance of the excess that plagued his debut Dark Days, Bright Nights.  Even the more commercially palatable productions Timbaland offers up are further hastened by a willingness to let his guard down.  The jovial shuffle of “Back In The Mud” is fashioned into a celebratory ode that commemorates all things below the Mason Dixon line and with the moonshine soaked “Comin’ Round” Bubba attempts to justify his career path “as long as daddy knows that his son does sweat/the same as he did for that uncut check” and even recalls lost love with the regretful “She Tried” w/ Ryan Tedder.

But Bubba’s maturation is best exemplified by “Nowhere” where he fights being boxed into comparisons with the H.W.I.C. (“cause Eminem’s incredible/but did I really have to say this/for ya’ll to leave my soul at rest and add my to your playlist”) and “Deliverance” where Bubba details his perceived “one hit wonder” status, his labels hot and cold treatment and even a bout with depression with one telling verse “then they start to question whether you a true talent/or just a redneck substance abuse addict/so then you hideaway just to try find your way/and now there back to calling you 200 times a day.” 

Though Bubba is no longer dependant on Tim’s production or reliant on pig slop gimmicks; the very personal journey and concepts he reveals on Deliverance are every bit as moving. Timbaland can still make any mic sound nice (“navigating another one of Timmy’s super sounds”) and he scoured the southern regions in search of the most countrified samples he could locate and envelopes them around his synthesized strings and procussion.  With “Comin’ Round” Tim lifts a vocal sample from the Yonder Mountain String Band (now that’s digging) and on “Nowhere” adds an operatic background courtesy of the Georgia choir to what sounds like the original demo of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River”—Timberlake even swings thru to repay Tim and Bubba for their contributions to his runaway smash of a debut and “Hootnanny” could do for Bubba what “Where Is The Love” did for Black Eyed Peas if pushed right.  Throw in an extra heaping of Organized Noize, who chip in “Back In The Mud” and “Like It Or Not,” which easily compares to their early work with Outkast and Goodie Mob and you have the best futuristic hick shit money can buy. 

While Bubba’s debut, Dark Days, Bright Nights, made him a household name thanks to the breakout single and video for “Ugly” it was a rushed effort that capitalized on the success of that single.  But with Deliverance, Bubba and Timmy have tweaked and twerked everything in its right place and the result is one of 2003′ most well-rounded, if overlooked, efforts.

The album’s dark days, reserved for its second half, definitely reveal a more introspective side of Bubba, with dank, soulful sounds of Organized Noize. Both “Take’m To The Water” and “Well Water” are most likely more true to Bubba’s signature sound, but after Timbaland has stolen the show, heads might nod off to slower selections like these, as well as the majority of the album’s second half. Still, he has fun on non-Timmy treats such as “All The Same”, where he blurs the lines between black and white, or “Regardless”, where he and C.I. fantasize about going against the grain.

How the public will react to this remains a mystery, as rednecks are not exactly looked at as “cool”, that is unless you like Kid Rock, pro-wrestling and NASCAR races. Not to mention the fact that race relations down south aren’t as good as they are in the video for “Ugly”, it’s questionable if he’ll really get the ghetto pass he strives for. Listening to the Bubba Sparxx album can be a treat at times, as it’s interesting to see the world from his perspective, but if you are anywhere close to New York or Los Angeles, it’s a lot like listening to a House of Pain album if you aren’t Irish. All in all, Bubba Sparxxx is a dope enough emcee to put a few smiles on some faces, while helping shake asses like bad habits, but let’s face it, he was in the white place at the white time. Nevertheless, as Bubba puts it on “This shit’s more than white folks and white thangs / or black folks and black thangs / just bounce if that track bangs”.